Because of this, the family was close. Her mother made a secure and loving home, and her brother, who was three years her elder, was her hero.
She followed him everywhere and always felt protected when he was around. He was intelligent, capable, confident, and honest.
He was athletic and a model student. Once the illness took hold of her mind, her emotional and psychological states deteriorated quickly. Her moods changed from moderate swings to full-blown episodes. Her manic states were huge and explosive periods of creativity and productivity. She threw herself into sports, school activities, socializing with friends, books, writing, and elaborate plans for her future.
She was like a wind-up doll that never had to be rewound. She felt amazing during these periods. Her mind took in information quickly and deciphered it even faster.
Math came easily, her mind was clear and focused, and the world made sense. She thrust her insights and observations of the wonders of the world at them with a frantic zeal.
Her friends frequently asked her to slow down or commented on how exhausting it was to listen to her. Manic depression is a deceptive disease. Everything is working with maximum efficiency. Thoughts and emotions zoom in and out like falling stars. They light up your dark mind and show you where to follow. You are extroverted and certain of your charisma.
You feel a keen gift for seduction and crave it in return. Then, as fast as a snap of your fingers, the elation dissipates. The efficiency drains. You become overwhelmed and confused by the scattered ideas. You get annoyed, upset, and scared easily and feel yourself slipping into darkness.
The darkness goes deeper than you thought it would and feels like it never ends. The people in your life fill you in on what happened while you were consumed by your manic brain and unaware of your actions. You never know how much of your frighteningly bizarre behavior is being left out to spare your feelings.
Overdrawn accounts and maxed-out credit cards are clues to what happened. You start a round of apologies to everyone who got caught in Even after her diagnosis, Jamison struggled for many years to manage her manic-depression.
She lost her ability to read and concentrate. She was nauseous and sick often, and the effects of the drug made her appear drunk in public. In addition to these side effects, the lithium worked by dulling the edges of both her heightened mind and the shadows of depression.
She lost her energy and enthusiasm for life, and as a result, she lost a part of who she was. These factors made Jamison stop and start her medication many times. The consequence was an month battle with suicidal depression.
Somewhere in the middle of those months, she lost the battle and attempted to take her life by overdosing on lithium. After her suicide attempt, Jamison started taking her lithium faithfully. Her moods started to stabilize, but she was still raw from the pain of wanting to die.
Her marriage ended for good, but a new love entered her life. This love would save her in many ways. He and Jamison fell in love quickly and started a romance that straddled two continents. His kindness and care for her after learning about her disease made her realize that tolerance was possible. She felt protected and accepted, and she started to heal parts of her she thought were broken forever. A year after she started dating David, he died from a heart attack.
She focused on work and accepted the inevitability of death. Her grief started to fade, but her love for him never did. She still experienced mood swings, but they were less intense and more manageable. She realized most of her life was spent surviving, not living , and she decided to pursue the latter.
She lowered her dose of lithium and regained her ability to enjoy life again. Years later, she met her second husband, Richard, a prominent researcher in schizophrenia and the Chief of Neurosurgery at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D. Richard was vastly different in personality and interests than Jamison. Where she was quick to anger, he was calm and reserved. Although her moods were often too much for Richard to handle, he always provided a solid foundation of love.
His unwavering unconditional love taught Jamison that a predictable life was far more enriching than a life of reckless passion. Jamison had many fears about informing others about her illness. Over the course of her career, she told fellow co-workers to ensure a safeguard against any impairments of her patient care. But she strongly feared professional backlash from others. But keeping the secret somehow constituted shame. Although she was ashamed of how her behavior had affected those in her personal life, she was not ashamed of her disease.
After moving to Washington to live with Richard, Jamison became interested in genetic mapping of precursors to mental illness. But she also thought knowing who carried the gene would tremendously help early diagnosis and targeted treatment. Her work has surrounded brain imaging to determine the causes of mental health disorders. When she arrived she saw Henry sitting in his usual spot staring out the window.
She sat next to him and put a hand on his arm, he looked up not quite startled but not quite calm either. Soon he looked back out the window saying nothing. His face looked puffy almost as if he had been crying, the thought sent a prickle of dread up her spine. She removed her hand from his arm and stared down at the table. This revolt from Henry had stirred a want to see her brother. He had always been able to help clear her mind, and she was honestly worried about him.
An unusual amount of time had passed with no sign of Julian. Not coming? What did he mean not coming? Then, a knock at the door. The Dean of Studies walked in. Charles marched in looking absolutely awful, Camilla wanted to run to him feeling as though she might vomit.
He looked horrible, she never meant for that to happen. But as soon as he had walked in he had walked out; Camilla sat still, unable to move, unsure if making a move would break the fragile line she felt their lives were sitting on. This dynamic was a dangerous one; she had known that from the beginning, but the situation felt more unstable than it ever had before. She went back to the Albemarle after class only briefly stopping to inquire more about Charles.
Henry she felt still unable to reach. An Unquiet Mind. Download e-Book. Posted on. Page Count.
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